Amazon declared today that, seven years ahead of schedule and with 100% renewable energy powering its operations worldwide, it has reached its goal. The milestone was reached in 2023.
Amazon first made public its clean energy goal in 2019. The company committed to using 100% renewable energy by 2030 to power all of its global operations, including data centers, corporate buildings, retail locations, and fulfillment centers. The company was using 42% renewable energy at the time.
According to Bloomberg NEF, the company has made billion-dollar commitments to clean energy development since establishing the goal, and during the last four years, it has emerged as the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy.
In total, Amazon has made investments in over 500 renewable energy projects throughout the world, including roughly 300 onsite solar arrays, 10 battery storage projects, 6 offshore wind projects, and over 240 solar and wind farms.
When all of its projects are operational, Amazon said that its portfolio of renewable energy will help prevent an estimated 27.8 million tons of carbon emissions annually.
The company’s Climate Pledge objective to reach net zero by 2040 includes the renewable energy target. Amazon announced the new accomplishment and noted that, “driven largely by the increasing demand for generative AI,” which is driving a requirement for different sources of energy, its path to net zero is “changing in ways that no one quite anticipated even just a few years ago.” According to the company, “We have known from the beginning that our path to net-zero would have many obstacles and that it would need to be adjusted for changes in the world and in our business.” However, we are still upbeat and committed to reaching these long-term objectives, just like we are with all of them.
Amazon announced that it will keep making significant investments in renewable energy to meet its expanding energy needs. It will also keep looking into new carbon-free energy sources like nuclear power, battery storage, and emerging technologies.
“Reaching our renewable energy goal is an incredible achievement, and we are proud of the work we have done to get here, seven years early,” stated Kara Hurst, Chief Sustainability Officer at Amazon. We also understand that this is merely a fleeting moment, and while we will continue to make progress toward our goal of decarbonizing our operations, it will not always look the same every year.
After working for 20 years in investment management and research, Mark started ESG Today. Mark was employed at Toronto, Canada’s Delaney Capital Management (DCM) before starting ESG Today. Most recently, he served as the company’s head of U.S. equities. Mark worked for DCM as a member of the ESG team, which was in charge of monitoring and analyzing the sustainability factors that affected the portfolio companies and determining which ones were suitable to be included in the portfolio. Additionally, Mark worked for a number of years in the sell-side research sector, covering the services and technology industries. In addition to being a CFA charterholder, Mark has an MBA from Columbia University in New York and a BBA from York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto.
